Harry Reid Gone Wild

The Obama administration and Democrats are desperate to turn the national conversation away from the economy. Nothing both reflects and personifies that desperation better than the scurrilous attack on Mitt Romney by Senate Majority leader Harry Reid (D-NV). Without producing a shred of evidence, Reid has made the claim that the presumptive Republican presidential candidate hasn’t paid any taxes for 10 years.

Reid’s ostensible source(s) for the claim have varied. On July 31st, Reid told the Huffington Post that a “Bain Capital investor” had called him to reveal the information. Yet even as he made the accusation, he hedged. “He didn’t pay taxes for 10 years! Now, do I know that that’s true? Well, I’m not certain,” said Reid. “But obviously he can’t release those tax returns. How would it look?” Reid reiterated his assertion with a bit of class warfare thrown in. “You guys have said his wealth is $250 million. Not a chance in the world. It’s a lot more than that. I mean, you do pretty well if you don’t pay taxes for 10 years when you’re making millions and millions of dollars,” he added, further noting that Romney’s deceased father “must be so embarrassed about his son.”

A day later, Reid’s story changed. “I am not basing this on some figment of my imagination,” Reid said in a telephone call with Nevada reporters. “I have had a number of people tell me that.” When Reid was asked to elaborate on his sources he declined. “No, that’s the best you’re going to get from me…I don’t think the burden should be on me,” Reid said. “The burden should be on him. He’s the one I’ve alleged has not paid any taxes. Why didn’t he release his tax returns?”

One could ask Harry Reid and most of Congress the same question. As reported by McClatchy newspapers both Democratic leaders of the Senate and the House of Representatives, namely, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) respectively, “are among hundreds of senators and representatives from both parties who refused to release their tax records.”

On August 2nd, Reid upped the ante again, repeating his accusation on the floor of the Senate. “So, the word’s out that he hasn’t paid any taxes for 10 years. Let him prove that he has paid taxes, because he hasn’t,” Reid contended.

Note the despicable tactic to which Harry Reid has resorted. He makes an unsubstantiated allegation–one that could be made about virtually anything–and then claims the burden is on Romney to prove that the allegation is untrue. This is the stuff of banana republics and totalitarian regimes, but the Senate Majority Leader does it anyway, knowing that his media allies are more than willing to keep the story alive, and that other Democrats will rally to his side.

Some of the highest ranking Democrats, in fact, have indeed risen to the occasion. On Sunday, both Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Republican National Committee Chairman (RNC) Reince Priebus took to the airwaves and called Reid a liar and a “dirty liar,” respectively. House Minority Leader Pelosi fired back: “Harry Reid made a statement that is true. Somebody told him. It is a fact,” Pelosi told the Huffington Post in an interview. “Whether he did or not can easily be disposed of: Mitt Romney can release his tax returns and show whether he paid taxes,” she added. What could be even more easily disposed of is Nancy Pelosi’s proof that Reid is telling the truth. But asking Pelosi that seemingly obvious question was apparently a bridge too far for the leftist Huffington Post.

Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairwoman Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, (D-FL) who appeared on “This Week” also believes the burden is on Romney to disprove Reid’s allegations. “I do know that Mitt Romney could clear this up in ten seconds by releasing the 23 years of tax returns that he gave to John McCain when he was being vetted for vice president. Or even 12 years of tax returns that his own father said were what was appropriate. Because one year of tax returns, like he’s released, could just be for show,” she said–even as she added that she does not know who Reid’s source is either.

Former Counselor to the Treasury Secretary under President Obama Steven Rattner played the game as well. “I don’t think [the accusation] was appropriate,” he said. “But you still come back to the question, why won’t he release his tax returns? If he’s paid all the taxes he says he’s paid, he says he’s paid a lot of taxes every year, why not just release them and move on? And end this discussion.”

This tactic is about anything and everything except ending the discussion. It is about beating up Mitt Romney as a tax cheat if he doesn’t release his taxes, or more than likely beating him up as an out-of-touch elitist who makes far too much money if he does.

As for Reid, making venomous, unhinged statements is par for the course. He called Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas “an embarrassment to the Supreme Court” in 2004, referred to president George W. Bush as “a loser” during a speech at Del Sol High School in 2005, and claimed that former Republican Senate Majority leader Bill Frist had “no institutional integrity” in the same year. And on April 12, 2007, Reid revealed where his true concerns lay regarding the war in Iraq. “We’re going to pick up Senate seats as a result of this war. Senator Schumer has shown me numbers that are compelling and astounding,” he gushed at a press conference.

Arnold Ahlert is a former NY Post op-ed columnist currently contributing to JewishWorldReview.com, HumanEvents.com and CanadaFreePress.com. He may be reached at atahlert@comcast.net.

https://www.facebook.com/chas.holman Chas Holman

Na, Harry's just playing politics.

Not bad politics either. The proof is in the pudding.. the Governor has the pudding. .his behavior is 'curious' for a candidate who should be reaching out to independents to try and win an election.

kafir4life

How has Barack been doing with regards to the American people and their country?

Jim_C

He'll get four more years.

Jim_C

Very smart politics, at that.

What's the cost to Reid? There is no cost to Reid, so it's a no-brainer.

Both Romney and FDR had that "f-you" money that allows them to essentially do exactly what they want with the presidency. But where FDR stood up TO the rich conservatives of his day, Romney will stand up FOR them.

Throw in doubts about his financial dealings, add a personality that makes John Kerry look like Richard Simmons, and you got yourself a recipe for an election loss.

The more people get huffy about Obama's sealed documents, the better HE looks. I'm a big fan of the birther movement. Their willingness to make fools of themselves is a gift that keeps on giving.

And as long as Obama's team keeps that stuff sealed away, the wackos can have a speculative field day, and continue to make him look like the sane one. Stuff like his school records is total small potatoes. What, are we going to find out he got a B in Radical Feminism 202? Shocker!

Whereas with Romney, people are really going to wonder, what is he hiding, and who from? Is he keeping that secret because it's fodder for class warfare? Or is there something that would really turn off the Republican base?

At any rate, he's failed to put a lid on this thing, and it's getting closer to November.

fiddler

Yep innuendo. NO substance. That's how we were buffaloed the first time. Make any accusations and out comes the race card. How convenient.

The police acted "stupidly", he said.

So lying is good politics, eh Jim? Obama care is a TAX. So much for no taxes on those making $250.00.

So should Romney ask Reid : "Is there any truth to the allegation that you beat your wife?'

Is that the kind of "smart" politics you admire. Aw who cares as long a marxism takes over.

fiddler

Correction on those makingin under $250,000 per year.

Jim_C

The race card isn't hard to play when so many racists are willing to open their yaps.

Romney asking Reid about beating his wife would be par for the course. Were you sleeping during Newt's campaign last year, by any chance?

HoR_Emperor

Class-warfare nonsense. No one believes that but you Lefties.

fiddler

…and all liars will have their part in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone. This is the second death.
–From the book of Revelation.

I wonder if Harry has ever read that. Is being a liar really smart?

Ted G

Sorry I reject the notion that outright lying is just playing politics!

HoR_Emperor

Blatantly and slanderously lying about someone is "just playing politics"?

Give me a break.

mary

He needs to get out of the stream like the turd so we can clean up our water!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Mary

amused

Well Fiddler , I hope there's room enough in that " Lake " [ of fire ] for the rest of the 525 or so liars in Washington . They've ALL been caught in LIES thusfar , Romney is no exception . Dress for warm weather when you reach your last hour Fiddler , you and about 85 % of the posters on this blog , lol…including ALL of the Management .
Hypocrisy will buy you a free ticket to the "lake " watersports too .

Hank Rearden

Reid has spent his career enriching himself and his family from his position of public trust. That is, when he was not encouraging our enemies in Iraq.

What about those real estate deals in Nevada, Harry?

kafir4life

Eric and Barack ordered the murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry. Agent Terry had information about Eric and Barack earning commissions on the guns sold to drug dealers by the Obama administration. Now, do I know that that’s true? Well, I’m not certain. But obviously he can’t release the documents that Congress has requested. How would it look? Obama's communist, useless, and abandoned father would be very proud of his boy. I am not basing this on some figment of my imagination. I have had a number of people tell me that. I don’t think the burden should be on me. The burden should be on them. They're the ones I’ve alleged ordered the murder of Agent Terry. Why didn’t they release the documents?

Oh. Harry is fond of little boys too. Everybody knows that.

davarino

Nice, touche.

These are communist, totalitarians, who would just have Romney eliminated if they thought they could get away with it.

kateyleigh

Lol! That was great!a

Steve Chavez

OUCH! That is a good one and the allegations could be endless but I will now spread the word that "Eric and Barack earning commissions on the guns sold to drug dealers."

Jim_C

I heard John McCain fathered an illegitimate black child in South Carolina.

I heard Barack Obama wasn't born in the United States. That he's a secret Muslim, and a commie, to boot. I heard he is going to declare martial law, and take our guns away. I heard he had a gay lover. I heard he's in league with terrorists to plot the downfall of the USA.

Harry Read is a scurrilous individual, ambulance chaser personified and so dispicable that the
people of Nevada should be forced to wear sack cloth and ashes for sending him to the
United States Senate. Debbie blabbermouth Schultz clears up the mystery of tax returns
stating that Romney gave John McCain twenty three years (23 years) of returns being veted
for Vice President. Does her statement not explicitly contradict Reid the liar. One thing about
liars, they can not keep their stories straight for long. If future President Romney had held
back ten years of tax returns from McCain it would have been noted and blasted in the media
but Reids lie had not been hatched yet, so it goes……..Nevada hold your collective heads in
shame. Where is our National Budget, Democratic ploy to spend without control, emptying
the Naitonal treasury, destrying our fiscal integrity but what can one expect from a liar and
crook like Harry Reid……..Why hasn't the Senate gotten rid of him, birds of a feather?
……………………………..William

kateyleigh

I believe Nancy. I take her statement literally. I'm betting that it is a fact that someone told Harry Romney hasn't filed taxes for 10 years. Could have been anyone—- maybe Nancy said it. The allegation may not be a 'fact', but it might be a fact someone 'told' him.
I 'm an alien from another planet. I'm not of course, but that I said it is a fact.

I'm going to guess from age 5 to15, Romney didn't file/pay taxes. So now the statement could be true, or a fact, too.

Schlomotion

This article neglects to mention that nearly all of Congressmen are real estate swindlers and that Mr. Ahlert's only real motivation for supporting Mitt Romney is that he has promised more illegal real estate to Benjamin Netanyahu. Mr. Ahlert raises the issue that Harry Reid profited from land that he hasn't owned for three years (not that he fact-checked any of that). What of Mr. Romney, who stands to profit by promising land that he never owned in exchange for 11 million dollars from Israel and Sheldon Adelson?

CHOI

Every day and every way,you DRAG YOUR JEW-HATRED into any and every TROLLING POST you make.
Do the Jihadis PAY YOU by the post or by the hour?

fiddler

This is yet another pitiful attempt at moral equivalence.

If you REALLY care about corruption, STOP voting these people in. How did we have to endure Teddy Chappaquiddick Kennedy for 40 some years? Answer because of a duped public in Mass who could moralize their way out of a paper bag.

TERM LIMITS! Send them packing to return to private life and live under the laws they themselves create!!!

Ghostwriter

Don't ever get tired of all the Jew-hatred you peddle on this website,Schlockmotion? It makes you sound stupid.

HoR_Emperor

More Jew-hatred from our resident anti-Semitic troll.

kafir4life

allahu snackbar, schlomie, allahu snackbar! Are you having a pleasant ramadamadingdong? How's that pedophilic prophet of yours, schlomie? Isn't he the one that shat the koran in the arabian sands?

Western Spirit

Rush is right. The way to silence the crap Reid is spewing is to demand an investigation into how Reid,who makes thousands, is now worth millions.

You're a racist. Like Harry Reid. He pointed out that BO (aka Stinky) was light skinned enough to be electable, and didn't have "a Negro accent, unless he wanted one".

Ghostwriter

mrbean,your "Amos n' Andy" routine is just as bad as Schlomotion's Jew hatred. Both are unnecessary and stupid. Please ditch it.

guest

Lets see Harry s' tax returns! That will shut that weasel up…

Juan Motie

Try calling hairy "pinky reid's office and suggesting the senile and demented senator release his tax returns. You will get a rude aide who will tell you pinky ain't runnin' fer president so shut up your mouf! Then the rude little aide will hang up on you.

Steve Chavez

If I were Romney, I would only release the number$ Reid, ordered by Obama, are interested in that reveal every years TOTALS OF MONEY MADE AND TAXES PAID AND MONEY DONATED.

IT USED TO BE, BEFORE OBAMA'S CLASS WARFARE, that a person like Romney would be envied since he worked 24-7 to acquire his wealth. Even Reid, Kerry, and Feinstein can be envied. IT'S THE AMERICAN GOAL TO BE WEALTHY!

Then you have people dreaming of becoming RICH OVERNIGHT by buying lottery tickets while Romney worked decades to acquire his.

Steve Chavez

This would prove that Harry was lying and that now Reid has to prove otherwise.

I did hear on Fox an interview by a prosecutor that says Romney should sue for slander and that Reid must reveal his source so Romney can then defend against the accuser.

watsa46

The US was winning the "war" in Iraq. Pr. O did what was needed to lose it. The democrats call that a success.

fiddler

Say Senator Reid: "Is there any truth to the allegation that you beat your wife?" What about growing marijuana in your back yard?

And while we are at it……..

(All above is no less scurrilous than what has been leveled at the governor)

So this passes for Senatorial discourse. Wow. As the saying goes:

"Politician's are like diapers; both need to be changed, and for the same reason!"

http://tarandfeathersusa.wordpress.com/ Iratus Vulgas

It's impossible to win any kind of argument with anyone who will not or cannot use logic, math, and plain common sense. Add gullibility and an inbred sense of entitlement and you have a constituency that will not be moved. God help us if this is the profile of a voter majority. Reid apparently thinks so.

Harry Reid, show us your tax returns!! They are all a bunch of crooks, and they get off(charles rangal) and get re-elected. Maybe all Congress should show their tax returns.

watsa46

The left is controlled by far left ideologues and headed by a a Islamo-communist leader that has decided that the best way to control the country is to divide and destroy. The left is on the path of war to destroy the human spirit and the individual.

tagalog

Harry Reid knows good and well that the commonly-understood rule is that the burden is on a person making a claim to prove up his claim. When Reid says that the burden should be on Romney to prove that he DID pay taxes when Reid makes an unsubstantiated claim that he didn't, that's bass-ackwards.

Reid's claim is that Romney didn't pay taxes for ten years. It's his job to back that claim up with evidence. It's a craven act, a political posturing of the worst kind, to make a claim then abandon while it gets ground up in the rumor mill.

gman213

Dirty Harry Reid is a pedophile…prove it wrong!

repackrider

If you want to call Harry Reid a liar, he will buy you a microphone and rent a stadium to make sure nobody misses it. In case you didn't figure it out, he's spoiling for a fight to be conducted 24/7 on all media, and the GOP is obliging. Now they are debating their own candidate's honesty with a senator, not the president, and the candidate is not making the job any easier by holding out.

Noted liberals William Kristol, George Will, Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry have called for Mitt to live up to a symbolic gesture of presidential honesty that was initiated by Mitt's own father, and is as sacred a part of the presidential ritual as shaking hands or kissing babies. Maybe nobody told Mitt he would have to kiss a baby.

Lie , steal, cheat, and bring an invasion of foreigners. Sounds like a plan to me. ;(

RAP

Reid is a "taxer", no different from a "birther". Even their "all you have to do is release your tax-returns/birth-certificate to end the controversy" is the same. Big difference is that mainstream Republicans rejected and denounced "birthers" as a radical fringe, while "taxers" are the mainstream core of the Democratic Party. Shame on them, and shame on the mainstream media for not treating "taxers" with the same ridicule and disdain they treated "birthers".

Amused

Reid's a LIAR …..and so is Romney ..lol….and so are ALL of the 525 clowns we put in Washington .LOL….the highest crime demographic amongst groups of that size in the U.S. , outside of prison walls exists among this group of "elected officials " .
I'm thoroughly AMUSED .
I liken this circus to TWO WHOREHOUSES on either side of the street ,with the whores hanging out the windows screaming and throwing rocks at one another , each calling the other " WHORE " .lolol….nary a virgin nor decent woman among them .

Amused

Reid's a LIAR , and so is Romney .

Amused

The highest crime demographic in the country , outside of prison walls , exists amongst that group of 525 clowns elected to office in Washington .

Amused

I'm thoroughy AMUSED . It's like two cathouses on either side of the street with the occupants screaming at and throwing rocks at on another .
Enjoy the show , it's gonna get a lot worse , especially with super-pac money putting up un-endorsed ads , having only a group rather than party disclaimer .

Paul B.

It's coming down to Democrats are evil. This country has a critical moral choice to make. We shouldn't even be having this conversation, but here we are, and our lives depend on it.

Asher

Reince Preibus is right, Dinji Harry has become Dirty Harry. How in the world does anyone have any respect for these people that are failures in helping the AMerican people, putting us on a destructive path to Armageddon?

amused

Yea Paul B. all Demoocrats are eeeeevil , and all Republicans are lily white angels who can do no wrong .Yup they are the reeeeeeaaal Patriots . That other 46% of Americans who are Democrats , THEY ARE TRAITORS who wish to destroy America /. Only Republicans are true patriots , everyone else across and inbetween are traitors .
Now go back on your drugs boy .

amused

Romney said he will restire "work " to welfare . That is a lie , it was never abolished . Obama asked for flexibility ……just as Romney did in 2005 .
Yup he's a liar .